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Okanagan Summer

Margaret’s visit was a success, as we managed to eat a lot of nice food, which included a truly beautiful peach pie from Van Kalkeren’s fruit stand, which is a stone’s throw from mom’s house in Osoyoos. If I lived there I’d weigh an awful lot, as these pies are home made, very thick with fruit, and have a magnificent crust.

It was over 35 degrees most days when Margaret was here, so we mostly hunkered down in the air conditioned house as we like to do. However we also spent three hours big game hunting at thrift, and it was lucrative. Margaret now owns a Michael Kors top which she got for $3.99 and I got a DKNY short black trench coat for $7.50.

Thanks a lot to those out there who paid the usurious prices for those items the first time out. And thanks also for the kind care taken, as both looked new.

As Jerralynn’s the manager of the wine shop at Tin Horn Creek, I asked for her expert opinion on which wineries to visit this time. We’d been to Tin Horn Creek before, and I wanted some suggestions of interesting places, given there are something like 450 wineries in the valley now.

We stopped at three she recommended: Maverick, Stone Boat and Perdue, all in Oliver, and Margaret got a bottle of wine at each for the winter. Then on soggy, dark Vancouver evenings she can have a glass and recall the amazing heat of the Okanagan Valley.

The heat truly feels the way adorable Denise, the gym instructor from the East, described it. She said, you know when you have your oven set at 400 degrees and you open the door and that heat hits you in the face? We all nodded, as we were about to leave and get into our sun-soaked vehicles.

As a result of the long, hot summer, the fruit is super sweet this year. I eat great big, ripe, sweet, juicy peaches daily, and I love them so much. I recall days in the fruit stand when we’d all eat ourselves into a stupor with all of that beautiful fruit.

Alison worked there one year, and we loved going across the street to the Iceberg for a pint of soft serve ice cream which we’d eat inside a crazy-sweet cantaloupe. Mom would get mad, telling us we were eating up all the profits, but somehow it didn’t stop us.

I inspected my bee hive the other day and I still don’t see all of the frames covered in honeycomb. The beekeeper told me to feed them syrup until all 8 frames are filled in, but so far they’re not, so these bees are going to be slurping sugar syrup all summer. But you may recall it was a hive of ‘nucs’ IE baby bees, so maybe it takes a bit to get a hive going.

I do love my life, the birds and the bees, the flowers and the trees; the dog and cats; cherry compote and peach clafoutis. Sure, it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but running around barefoot in the yard, nails dyed black from pitting cherries, puts me into a strange state of euphoria.

I’ve noticed as I continue to chant, meditate and live in the moment, at times I feel as though I’m high on acid from joy, and just hope it’s not early dementia. Oh well.